A Terraced Roofline Is One Long Run
Squirrels travel at gutter height. Along a Willesden terrace that means fascia and soffit boards, the parapet and valley gutters between roof slopes, and the small roofs over the bay windows, all of it carrying on from house to house. Where a board has rotted at one end of the run, or a slipped tile has opened the verge, the way in is available to any squirrel that has already learned the route. In some older roofs the party wall stops short of the tiles too, so neighbours can end up sharing a single problem.
Loft conversions and roof edges
A converted loft changes the edges of a roof. A rear dormer brings new cheeks, a flat roof and a junction where new work meets old slate; rooflights sit in frames that have to be flashed properly; and the eaves cupboards left over back onto whatever roof space remains. Where that detailing has weathered, or was never quite right, it is usually the easiest opening on the building. How squirrels get into a roof describes what to look for from the ground.
Street trees and garden trees
The streets around Roundwood Park are well planted, and the back gardens behind them hold mature trees left from a time when nobody thought about the roofline. A squirrel will jump a surprising distance from a branch, and where there is no branch it will climb a drainpipe, a soil stack or a thick growth of ivy instead. That is why a house with nothing overhanging it can still end up with squirrels overhead.
How a Squirrel Job Runs on a Terrace
The £280 trapping service deals with the grey squirrels using your roof space. Whether you are doing this once or every other winter depends mostly on the order the stages happen in.
Making sure it is squirrels
Daytime noise, heavy footfalls rather than light scurrying, and movement at the roof edge first thing in the morning point to squirrels. Noise after dark, and under the floor as well as above the ceiling, points to rodents. What squirrels sound like overhead helps you tell them apart, and if it turns out to be rats or mice that is a different booking.
Trapping, and leaving the loft alone
Once trapping is arranged you will be told what it involves and what is asked of you, which generally means keeping the hatch shut, leaving anything set up untouched and keeping children and pets out of the roof space until you hear otherwise.
Waiting until the roof is quiet
The way in stays open until the squirrels have stopped using it. Shut one in and it will gnaw its way out, sometimes through a ceiling into the rooms below, and between late winter and the end of summer there may be young in a nest that cannot leave on their own. How long squirrel control takes depends on the roof and on how many are using it.
The repair, and only then the branches
Closing the gap is roofing work: a new section of fascia or soffit, tiles refixed at the verge, or making good where a dormer meets the old roof. Line a roofer up early and show them exactly where the squirrels were going in, because a repair in the wrong place changes nothing. Branches come last, as cutting a tree back while squirrels are inside achieves little, and anything large is a tree surgeon's work. Stopping squirrels getting back in describes a repair that lasts.
The Law on Releasing a Trapped Grey Squirrel
Grey squirrels are an invasive non-native species. Once one has been caught it is an offence to release it into the wild or to allow it to escape, so carrying a trapped squirrel down to the park is not a lawful option whatever the intention behind it. The legal position after trapping sets it out plainly, and Squirrel Control Brent gives the borough-wide picture.
When You Share a Roof With the Neighbours
Before anything is booked, speak to the houses either side. If the opening is above their back bedroom rather than yours, your own repair will not settle it, and two roofers working a fortnight apart on the same terrace can simply move the problem along the row. For the other pests in NW10 and NW2, see Pest Control Willesden, and neighbouring Dollis Hill, with its larger period houses and gardens, has plenty of the same trees.
